


where my heart's still beating

by mcmeekin



Series: let me go home [4]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4588464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmeekin/pseuds/mcmeekin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes ‘and they lived’ has to be good enough.<br/>(Putting the pieces of Doctor K back together, one checkmark at a time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	where my heart's still beating

**Author's Note:**

> idk how this happened, but i heard the first line of a country song on the radio, and it did so...  
> when i say 'implied relationships', i mean 'k lives with ziggy and summer left with dillon so i guess they're probably dating in this fic.' like it is super minimal.

It takes a few weeks, but something shifts in Doctor K when Venjix is gone.

 

They don’t live in the garage anymore (of course they don’t; the place was barely suitable for habitation). They’re provided a house on the coast. Isolated. Peaceful. Beach front access (not that she ever uses it). The former rangers use the house as a sort of hotel. Summer, Tenaya, and Dillon have a set pattern of being out in the wastelands for a month, and then back in Corinth for a week, collecting supplies, interest, and reporting back on their findings. And sleeping under the same roof as K.

“There are refugees out there,” Summer tells her one evening over dinner. “We’ve run into six distinct camps in the past month alone.” Her eyes seem to glow when she talks about the work they do, and K is privately pleased that she’s found something to be passionate about.

Even Scott, Gem, and Gemma use the house as a crash pad occasionally. Scott comes by every Friday for dinner. Gem and Gemma’s behavior has never been predictable, so sometimes they’re at the house without her even knowing.

And sometimes the stars align, and they all end up at the house at the same time. It’s one of those nights when she hears them talking about her.

Their voices are hushed, but not hushed enough that she can’t hear them when she stands just outside the door.

“I’m just…worried about her, is all.” That’s Scott’s voice. “She’s gotten so quiet, and I… I don’t know. I think she might have, like, PTSD or something.”

“PTSD?” Ziggy mutters back. “Everyone in Corinth probably has PTSD.”

“No, not from Venjix. From Alphabet Soup.”

Ziggy sounds skeptical. “Alphabet Soup happened, like, three years ago. Why would she only start suffering from that experience now?”

“Ziggy, she spent every waking minute from the time she escaped that place until we won trying to defeat Venjix,” Summer cuts in. “She wouldn’t go outside, she wore her uniform the whole time, and she emotionally distanced herself from all of us. Defeating Venjix forced her to stop doing things that kept her stuck in the past. She’s being forced to acknowledge what happened and move on, and I don’t think she really wants to.”

They’re quiet for a moment. “Are you saying that she’s just…shutting down?” Dillon asks finally.

“I’m saying I think we forced her to shut down. And I think it’s our job to force her to open up again.”

K doesn’t want to hear anymore, so she turns and goes back to her room.

 

She’s afraid for a while that Ziggy might try to do something stupid in light of the conversation she overheard, but nothing happens.  Until the day he stumbles out of bed at eight in the morning on Saturday, four hours earlier than he usually wakes up.

She smiles at him from the kitchen table where she’s sitting, typing. “Good morning. What are you doing up so early?”

He stares at her. “Nightmare. How long have you been awake?”

“Since six,” she answers lightly.

Silence, then, “It’s Saturday.”

“Correct.”

“And you’ve been up since six a.m.”

“I just told you that, Ziggy.”

He blinks at her slowly, confusion evident in his expression. “Why did you wake up at six a.m. on a Saturday? What could you possibly be doing today?”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes with great difficulty. “Lesson plans.”

“You’ve already planned out lessons for the next two months.”

“Yes. And there needs to be lessons planned for the _next_ two months.”

He shakes his head resolutely. “No. Nuh-uh.” He crosses to her and closes her laptop abruptly. She protests, but he cuts across her. “You need to have some fun.”

His hand will not budge from its position on top of her computer, so she crosses her arms. “Doing what, exactly?”

He points at her with his other hand. “See, that’s your problem. You don’t know how to have fun.”

At this, she raises her eyebrows. “And I assume you’re going to teach me?”

“Of course I am. You just gotta start asking for things that you want again.”

She falters, her irritation slipping. “I’m not really sure what I want anymore.”

“Well, that’s okay, too. But, we’re officially making you a bucket list.” He’s already moving back toward the kitchen, stopping to pull open a drawer and retrieve paper.

“A bucket list?”

“Yeah, you know, like ‘top ten things to do before you die.’” He’s now searching for a pen.

She wonders if she can open up her laptop again without him noticing. “I know what a bucket list is.”

He clicks the pen and sits down opposite her. “Okay, so, what are some things that you’ve never done before?”

She sighs. “What is the point of this, Ziggy?”

“You’re never gonna know how to have fun if you don’t experience things first. So, what are some things you’ve never done before?”

He’s looking at her with an intensity she often sees in her rangers. It’s an expression that tells her that he’s not giving this one up. So, she sighs again and thinks about it. “Um…I’ve never been grocery shopping.”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s because we get our groceries delivered. Besides, grocery shopping isn’t fun, and this is supposed to be about finding fun things for you to try.”

“How would I know that grocery shopping isn’t fun? I’ve never done it.”

“Okay, fine, we’ll put ‘shopping’ on the list. Leaves it open to interpretation what kind of shopping. What else? Have you ever seen a movie?”

She fixes him with a look. “I’ve seen a movie before.”

“No, like, in a theater.”

She sighs. “Does it make a difference?”

“Yes! It makes a huge difference, and it’s going on the list. What about plays? Ever seen a play? I hear they’re nice.”

“Have _you_ ever seen a play?”

“No, so it’ll be a first for us both. A bonding experience, if you will.” She rolls her eyes. “What else? Come on, we’re on a roll here.”

She looks at the piece of paper incredulously. “There are three things on the list.”

“A roll, I tell you,” he repeats, pointing the pen at her threateningly. “Hey, a roll! Have you ever cooked or baked something?”

She puts her head in her hands.

 

He takes her to a movie that afternoon and takes her stargazing on the beach that night.

“You know these aren’t the real stars, right?” she asks as he spreads out a blanket over the sand.

“Yeah, okay, Doctor No-Fun-Allowed, but they’re pretty, and we’re going to look at them together.” He lies down on the blanket, folds his hands behind his head, and looks up at the night sky resolutely.

She sighs. “I don’t see the point in this.”

“Just lie down, okay?” She sighs again but does as she’s told.

She looks at the sky quietly for a moment before asking, “Now what?”

“Uh… I don’t actually know. I’ve never really done this before. Know any constellations?” He looks at her sideways. She shakes her head. “Well, neither do I so I guess we’re not gonna talk about the stars. Uh… You know what? This is your thing, so you pick the conversation.”

“This is not ‘my thing’!” she protests.

“Well, it’s _for_ you, so you pick what we talk about.”

She huffs. “Fine. Whatever. Tell me something I don’t know about you,” she says.

He laughs. “Wow. That’s gonna be hard. Um… Okay, I’ve got something.”

“That didn’t seem very hard."

He laughs again like she’s said something amusing. “If I tell you what I’ve just thought of, will you tell me something I don’t know about you, too?”

She hesitates, but only briefly. “That seems fair.”

“All right. I don’t want to take you to the aquarium because sharks freak me out.”

She looks at him. “Your zord was a shark.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t like sharks?”

He looks at her, a little incredulous. “Would you have cared?”

She thinks about it. “No.”

“Exactly.”

“But I care _now_ ,” she says. “We don’t have to go to the aquarium.”

He shrugs, looking back up at the stars. “It’s on your list, so we’re going. Also, this whole deal with you caring about my feelings is sort of new so why don’t you tone it down a little?”

She realizes he’s joking a moment later. “Oh. Well…being afraid of sharks is irrational because the odds of a shark attacking you are just over one in three million. You should probably pick a more logical phobia.”

He laughs heartily at that, and she allows herself a small smile. “Ah, there’s the K I know. Dismissing my feelings and trying to logic me out of my fears. Just like old times. Your turn.”

Her smile fades as she considers what to tell him. Her problem is opposite his. There’s too much he doesn’t know about her.

“I’m not really a doctor,” she decides. “And my name isn’t K.”

He snorts. “That feels like a cop out answer; we all figured your name couldn’t be a letter.”

She shrugs. “It’s the truth, and it’s something you didn’t know, so it counts.”

“Does not,” he mutters under his breath, but he doesn’t seem that upset about it.

They’re both quiet for a few minutes, looking up at the night sky peacefully.

“You should pick a real name,” he says nonchalantly.

The suggestion doesn’t surprise her. “Gem and Gemma did,” she says, avoiding having to answer. “Apparently, they were ‘G’ and ‘J’.” She swallows, hard.

“‘Apparently’?”

She nods. “I didn’t meet them until they were grown up, but they told me that one day they just decided to stop responding to anything other than Gem and Gemma. They said it was their little way of rebelling.”

Ziggy snorts. “Sounds like them… But why ‘G’ and ‘J’ and ‘K’? What was up with that system?” he muses. She opens her mouth to tell him, but he continues before she can. “Ooh, maybe ‘K’ was the first letter in your real name, so they kept it.”

She swallows the words that had risen up to tell him he was wrong. “Maybe,” she lies instead.

It’s not her story to tell, she tells herself. That’s why she doesn’t tell him that Alphabet Soup used every letter in the alphabet, doesn’t tell him that Gem and Gemma probably aren’t real twins, doesn’t tell him that there are twenty three other kids that existed, doesn’t tell him how rarely they lived to be teenagers. She doesn’t tell him any of it.

It’s not like anyone’s ever accused her of being brave.

 

Scott’s the first to notice the list.

“What’s this?”

K looks up from the book she’s reading to see his fingers hovering over her list tacked to the fridge. “It’s a list,” she says simply. “Ziggy made it.”

“What kind of list?” he asks, looking closer. “Oh, it’s your bucket list.”

“That’s what Ziggy calls it,” she says. She knows that the list is more than that, but she’s not quite sure how to articulate that to Scott. A bucket list is full of things to do before you die. Her list is full of things to do to keep her alive.

He examines her list. “‘Go to a concert,’” he reads. “You’ve seriously never been to one?”

She shoots a glare at him, vaguely annoyed. “Do I strike you as the type to attend a concert?”

He looks back at her, grinning. “I’d have pegged you as an orchestra attendee.”

“That’s not the same thing as attending a concert,” she argues.

“Why not? They’re called concerts.”

“Because Ziggy made the list, and I am certain that he did not mean ‘orchestra concert’ when he wrote ‘concert’.”

Scott considers her. “Have you ever been to an orchestra?” She shakes her head. “Then I’ll take you to one. And we can cross the concert off the list.”

“But—”

“Hey,” he interrupts and points to himself. “Leader of the power rangers. Ziggy has to do whatever I say, legally.”

She fights a smile. “I don’t think that’s how it works. And I didn’t make you leader for you to abuse your power.”

“Oh? Then what did you make me leader for, the perks?”

She rolls her eyes, and he laughs.

She ends up loving the concert, but what surprises her is how much Scott loves it. There are times when her mouth struggles with his name, times when her memory still reaches back to when it was not a necessary word in her vocabulary. Now is not one of those times. He could not be anyone other than Scott, sitting there listening to a classic music piece with a small smile on his face. She comments on it on the ride home.

“My therapist when I was little had a thing with classical music. It helped calm me down,” he explains.

“You went to therapy as a child?” she asks, belatedly realizing this might be a rude question.

He nods, apparently unperturbed. “Yeah, right after my mom died.” He pauses. “Actually, _most_ people go to therapy when bad things happen to them as kids.”

She catches his meaning and turns to stare out the window. “Everyone in Corinth should probably go to therapy. Doesn’t mean anyone does.”

“Maybe we should put it on your list.”

“No,” she says immediately. 

“That’s fine,” he replies evenly. “Just…talk to someone, okay? Anyone.”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t make promises as she watches the stoplights roll past.

 

The rangers start doing things from her list basically every weekend. She starts to almost look forward to it.

Flynn takes her to play laser tag.

“We used to do it without you all the time when we were rangers,” he explains on the ride over. “Pretty much any time you kicked us out of the garage because you needed to concentrate.”

She thinks back on those times. “You must all be very good laser tag players.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll go easy on you for the first few games.” He flashes a grin at her.

Apparently, laser tag involves acquiring a nickname.

“I already technically have one,” she points out.

He shakes his head. “Nah, it doesn’t count. Here, allow me.”

Her nickname ends up being ‘Killer Violinist.’ He goes for ‘Tractor.’ She looks at him, confused, and he shrugs. “Inside joke.”

She ends up being surprisingly good at laser tag. It’s not like she’s never shot a gun before, and a lot of it is strategy and pattern recognition and picking the right team. And laughing. There is a lot of laughing.

He takes her out for ice cream afterward.

“Why are you so quiet these days?” he asks as he takes a bite of his blue raspberry monstrosity. 

She shrugs, smiling lightly. “Don’t have much to say.”

She doesn’t tell him the truth; of course she doesn’t. The truth is that she’s told so many lies over the years to so many people that she can hardly keep them all from spilling out of her every time she opens her mouth. So it’s easier to just keep it closed.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “You know, you can talk to us about anything. We’ve all seen each other at our worse; you’re not going to scare us off. You’re part of our team too.”

She nods absently, keeping her vanilla sugar cone from dripping. But she hears his words, deeper than he might expect. And it doesn’t escape her that today is the first day in a long time that someone hasn’t treated her like she’s breakable.

 

Gem ends up going with her to the aquarium instead of Ziggy.

“Ziggy let you two go to the aquarium alone?” Scott’s concerned voice comes through her phone.

“Yes,” she confirms. “It allowed me to also check off ‘taking the bus’ from my list. Though the experience was a little less than pleasant. Perhaps you could complain to your father about the state of public transport next time you see him?” She turns to observe the angel fish that Gem is cooing over.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Scott says. “But, more importantly, don’t you and Gem need… I don’t know, adult supervision?”

“I am eighteen years old, Scott. And Gem is legally twenty.”

“We both know that legality means nothing when it comes to Gem and Gemma.”

She sighs. “We’re fine. Nothing bad is happening. The worst that could occur would be…for one of us to fall in the sting ray pool, which I am told happens semi-regularly with visitors. Did you know that a jellyfish’s average lifespan is only around six months?” She reads this last fact off of an information board next to the jellyfish tank.

She can almost hear him resigning himself on the other end of the line. “No, I didn’t know that. Just…be safe, okay? Don’t get kidnapped or robbed or…or pick fights with fish.”

She rolls her eyes. “I would never fight a fish.”

“Doctor K! The feeding show’s gonna start in five minutes!” Gem calls from across the room where he’s grabbed an information pamphlet about the aquarium.

“I have to go, Scott. We’ll be fine, and I’ll call you if I need you. Goodbye.” She hangs up before he can find more ways to protest their situation and makes her way over to Gem. He grabs her hand as soon as she’s in range and practically rockets off in the direction K can only assume leads to the feeding.

Gem is endlessly amused by the feeding, as he is with practically everything in the aquarium. He drags her around to each tank with wide eyes and quite a bit of laughter, reading all the information with abject wonder. She mostly listens and nods.

“Oh! I know about this one,” he says, his face very close to a tank that holds an orange and white fish. “The clownfish and the sea anemone! They help each other out.”

She brings her own face closer to the tank, trying to see the fish how he sees them. “How so?”

“The sea anemone keeps the bad guys away with its stinging tentacles, and the clownfish helps feed the anemone. Keeps it alive. Keeps it happy.” He smiles brightly at one of the fish as it passes by him.

She eyes the sea anemone warily. “How does the clownfish keep from being stung by the anemone?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I like to think the clownfish just trusts it because they’re friends.”

Her protest is on the tip of her tongue ( _Fish don’t have feelings, Gem_ ), but the look on his face stops her. He’s smiling so contently, so amused and delighted by the prospect of a fish and a plant trusting each other that she can’t find it in her to dissuade him.

Instead, she looks at the fish swimming circles around its friend, its home, and nods. “I’d like to think so, too.”

 

Corinth only has one amusement park. To get in, you have to book tickets months in advance. The park has a limit on how many people it lets in each day.

Which is exactly what she tells Dillon when he pulls up in front of it.

“It’s on your list,” he says by way of explanation, already getting out of the car. It’s also the first thing he’s said since he picked her up this morning with nothing but the promise of doing something on her list.

She follows him hurriedly. “But we can’t get in.”

He glances at her, a hint of an amused smile on his face. “Yeah, we can.”

“Have you got tickets?”

“No.”

“But—”

“Trust me.”

She dismisses the rest of her protests because he’s right, of course. All she’s been doing for the past two years is trusting the rangers when they do things she does not comprehend. And it has always turned out all right. Mostly.

The security officer standing by the front entrance practically double takes upon seeing Dillon.

“Hello,” Dillon says, stopping in front of the officer with a very fake, pleasant smile on his face.

The officer is still looking at him with something akin to amazement. “Are you—?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dillon cuts her off as he reaches into his pocket. “Some ID for you, ma’am. Do you mind if we…?” He gestures toward the park, and the officer begins nodding vigorously.

“Oh, yes, yes of course, go right ahead. Enjoy yourself.”

“We will, thank you,” Dillon says, putting a hand lightly on K’s back to propel her forward. The officer seems to have just noticed her and stares with blunt curiosity.

When they’re safely inside the park and out of earshot, K mutters, “Wasn’t that a blatant abuse of your celebrity status?”

He grins. “That was only the beginning. Do you wanna do the ferris wheel or the merry-go-round first?”

The day is basically a blur of adrenaline and criticizing the designs of the rides, and she doesn’t even realize that she’s talked way more than Dillon until the day is almost over. But he doesn’t mind, so she doesn’t either. He also doesn’t seem to mind the seventeen times he’s approached for an autograph or a photo, which strikes her as odd. He used to despise the public. On time number twelve, she suddenly suspects that maybe he’s only being polite to them for her sake. Each time he’s approached, he steps in front of her, like he’s shielding her from them. Number twelve is when she realizes that he’s trying to get them to focus on him instead of her. She notes it as odd, but mostly brushes it off.

The day passes with only one true incident. They’re standing in line for cotton candy (again), and she’s babbling about how if the trajectory of that roller coaster was only slightly shifted the ride would be far more enjoyable, and she can tell that he’s not really paying attention, but she doesn’t really care.

Very suddenly, he looks down at her and interrupts her mid-rant. “I’m going to use the bathroom. Hold our spot in line?”

She nods because it’s not an odd request. He even flashes her a smile before he walks away. She fiddles with the lanyard he bought her and examines passersby, and there’s nothing inherently odd about the situation from any angle.

Until.

The crowd parts for only a few seconds, and her gaze is just coincidentally pointing in that direction, and it’s like the universe was conspiring for her to see this moment. It’s Dillon, standing next to a man who is holding a camera. Dillon is talking to him, but it’s like he’s old-Dillon. Dillon from before. Angry and tense and not at all like he was acting just a minute ago when he was standing next to her. The crowd shifts again, and she loses sight of them. It takes another minute for her to really understand what she just witnessed. 

Dillon is angry with the man for taking pictures of him. It’s the only situation that makes any sense, but at the same time, it doesn’t. He’d been taking pictures with people all day. Maybe it is different if he doesn’t allow the pictures to be taken. What is that word Summer likes so much? Consent?

She can’t puzzle over it anymore because suddenly, Dillon is back and smiling at her. “Sorry. Did I interrupt you complaining about something earlier?”

She blinks at him. He’s looking at her expectantly, and she quickly begins talking again, but she suspects that it is about a completely different topic than the one she was on when he left. He doesn’t seem to notice or mind.

The incident is pushed to the back of her mind until the drive home when she decides to ask him about it.

“Do you get photographed without your consent often?”

He glances at her. “When I’m in Corinth, yeah.”

“Does it bother you?”

He shrugs. “No. Not really. Why?”

She looks out the window, watches a sign that marks the speed limit whiz by. “You seemed angry at that photographer today.”

A moment of silence. “You saw that?”

“Briefly.”

He sighs. “Look, just ‘cause we have to get photographed all the time doesn’t mean that you do, too.”

She looks back at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He keeps his eyes firmly on the road. “I didn’t want that photographer to put photos of you out there. Nobody really knows who you are, K. I mean, we’re all celebrities, but you lead a nice, quiet life. I didn’t want to ruin that for you because of a stupid day out with me.”

“Why would a day out with you have ruined that for me?”

He runs a hand through his hair tiredly. “Listen, it’s just…if you got photographed with me, the media would start looking into who you were, and when they found out… Well, your life would become a lot like ours. Busy and flashy and very public. And if you want your life to be like that then fine, whatever. I just didn’t want that choice being made for you.”

She stares at him for a long time. “I took a lot of choices away from you, and yet you still defend my right to make them.”

“You’ve had a lot of choices taken from you, too. Just…let me give you this one back.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she turns to look out the window again.

“Besides,” he says after a while, nonchalant. “Imagine the talk if I were seen with an unfamiliar, beautiful, younger woman at an amusement park.”

She throws a nearby napkin at him.

 

When Gemma learns about the list, she immediately volunteers to have a sleepover and Disney movie marathon with K.

They have to wait for Gemma to get a Saturday off before it actually occurs. She shows up on the house’s doorstep with a bag full of DVDs.

“Are we going to watch all of those?” K asks, looking in the bag skeptically as Gemma pops popcorn.

“No, but a marathon has to have at least five movies. It’s pretty much a law,” Gemma informs her matter-of-factly.

K raises an eyebrow and tries not to smile. “Really? Are there any other laws I should be made aware of?”

Gemma turns to face her. “Yes,” she says seriously. “We have to make a blanket fort.”

The blanket fort turns out to be an ordeal, but they manage to get it “just right for movie watching” eventually. Gemma picks the first movie.

_Hercules_ turns out to be about a girl who makes a deal with the devil and regrets it a lot. Okay, so maybe it’s actually about some demigod who becomes a hero and saves a girl who made a deal with the devil and regrets it a lot, but all the facts are wrong and the mythology is all over the place, and K basically just concentrates on the subplot. She keeps sneaking glances at Gemma throughout the movie to see if she’s waiting for a reaction, but Gemma’s eyes remain glued to the screen. It’s not like she _suspects_ Gemma of having ulterior motives, it’s just…a possibility. Meg's story feels too close, too personal.

The credits roll, and Gemma leaps to her feet. “Wasn’t that awesome? Okay next, do you wanna watch Merida or Aurora?”

K looks at the films Gemma is holding up. “Neither of those are called what you just said.” Gemma glares, and K holds up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Aurora.”

_Sleeping Beauty_ does feature a girl named Aurora, to Gemma’s credit. She gets a curse put over the kingdom because of her curiosity in something she’d never experienced before. The connection to her own life is vague enough that she thinks that maybe Gemma really is ignorant of what is going on. She is Gemma, after all.

_Aladdin_ is about yearning for freedom. The ending song putters out, and Gemma claps.

“I didn’t like that one,” K remarks.

“What? Why? It’s such a classic.” Gemma appears genuinely shocked.

“Well, it appears that the moral was ‘you cannot achieve freedom unless someone else gives it to you,’ which is not a message I like.” K picks at the blanket in her lap absently.

Gemma shakes her head. “No, no. It was saying that freedom is found in chasing what you believe in. And you friends and family can help you in achieving that.”

K blinks. “Whatever you say. Can we watch the one with the gargoyles on the cover next?”

“ _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_? Sure thing!”

She decides halfway through that she likes this movie. It has nice artwork, and the gargoyles are cute. But the storyline…if she hadn’t picked the movie herself she would be suspicious of Gemma again. A man brainwashed into thinking the world outside would hurt him, going outside at a terrible price, then fixing the mistakes he made, and realizing that outside isn’t such a bad place after all. She’s almost a little relieved when it ends, and the final movie is selected.

_Tangled_ is put into the DVD player, and twenty minutes in K is decidedly unrelieved. A little girl gets kidnapped and brainwashed into never going outside, and when she finally does, she realizes that nothing is wrong with outside like she thought and saves the kingdom. Or something. There’s even a man named Flynn, to complete the picture.

“So, what did you think of Disney?” Gemma asks brightly after switching off the screen.

K shrugs, picking up a piece of popcorn off the floor. “The movies do not seem to be very self-empowering. Everyone had someone else to save them.”

Gemma tilts her head to the side like she’s considering this. “Did they?”

K sighs and begins listing. “Flynn got Rapunzel out of her tower. Esmerelda got Quasimodo out of _his_ tower. Hercules got Meg out of her deal with the devil. Genie only got freed because Aladdin let him out. Aurora had a prince and some fairies to save her from dying. Everyone had someone else to save them.” She wonders if Gemma can hear the question behind her words. _Why didn’t anyone save_ me?

Gemma considers this as seriously as she considers all things before shaking her head firmly. “I don’t think they saved them.”

“What?”

Gemma shrugs. “I just think that the heroes had someone to help them out. Not save them necessarily. But, you can interpret the movies however you want. Saving, helping. It can be all the same to you.”

“I don’t think it _is_ all the same to me,” K argues. “And I don’t really see what you’re saying.”

Gemma is busy adjusting some of the blankets on their fort so K isn’t sure if she’s even going to respond. But then— “The heroes just had people to encourage them to do things, you know? Flynn encouraged Rapunzel to leave the tower. Esmerelda encouraged Quasimodo to leave the tower. Hercules encouraged Meg to live her own life. Aladdin wouldn’t have freed Genie if Genie hadn’t been a good friend and encouraged Aladdin.” Gemma turns and smiles brightly at K. “Friends encourage one another, Doctor K. And that encouragement could be seen as helping or saving. That’s not a bad thing to teach children to do.”

After this statement, Gemma abruptly shifts topics by dictating to K how the fort needs to be adjusted to suit their sleeping needs.

Gemma is, predictably, the first to fall asleep. But K stays up longer, pondering the movies and Gemma’s words and her own thoughts.

Nobody saved her the first time around. But, she thinks as she glances over at Gemma’s sleeping form, maybe someone is this time.

(Knights in shining armor are overrated. She’ll take her knights in exoskeleton robotic suits any day.)

 

“Why do we have to go to the beach?” K complains as she examines the swimsuit Summer brought her skeptically.

Scott laughs from where he’s packing up the food. “You literally _live_ on the beach, K. You have to go sometime.”

“Besides, I already put it on your list, so it has to happen,” Ziggy says. “Sunscreen?”

When they get set up on the beach, the rangers all run straight for the water. Tenaya, however, settles into one of the chairs. K looks at her questioningly.

Tenaya shrugs as she puts on her sunglasses. “Water’s not really my thing. I think it has something to do with the majority of my memories telling me that I’m a robot. Robots and water don’t really get along well.”

“So what are you doing instead?” K asks hesitantly.

Tenaya’s lips twist into a smile. “It’s called tanning. Otherwise known as relaxing.”

“Oh. Do you speak during this activity?”

K gets the feeling Tenaya's trying not to laugh at her. “Only if you want to.”

K thinks that she decidedly does not want to right now, so she settles down into a different chair and observes Gem, Gemma, and Flynn, who have abandoned the water in favor of arguing over…sandcastle dimensions? They’re too far away to hear them properly, but the way they’re gesturing indicates the subject of their conversation is architecture. 

Sitting there, watching them, she becomes suddenly overwhelmed with the need to spill one of her secrets. So she does.

“I know what my name is.”

Tenaya’s head tilts in her direction. “What?”

“I remembered my name when Flynn and I were playing laser tag together. It just…occurred to me. I saw a little girl wearing pink, and I remembered that I used to wear pink, and then I remembered.”

Tenaya seems to accept this abrupt admission. “Then why don’t you use it?”

K shrugs, avoiding looking at Tenaya directly. “Names have power, I guess. That girl died the say she walked into Alphabet Soup. Using her name, claiming to be her, feels like an insult to her memory.”

Tenaya is quiet then, pondering. K is almost convinced that will be the end of the conversation when suddenly— “K?” She hesitates again. “I don’t…I don’t think she would mind. I think whoever you were would be proud of who you are.”

K sighs. “Proud of a mass murder who nearly brought about the destruction of the world?”

“Proud of a girl who saved the world through what was essentially sheer force of will.”

She looks at Tenaya, almost curiously. “Don’t you blame me? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have blood on your hands.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be wandering around out there wondering who I was.”

Annoyance flashes through her. “You can’t do that. You can’t just pick and choose which parts of my life you want to attribute to me and which you want to conveniently leave out.”

She snorts. “And why not? History book writers do it all the time.” K glares at her. “And you do it all the time. Alphabet Soup kidnapped and brainwashed you, so, really, they caused Venjix, but you always cite yourself as the cause.”

“But don’t you blame me a little?”

Tenaya looks at her a little more directly. “Did you force me to pull the trigger, K?”

“Venjix did. And I forced Venjix to become what he was.”

Tenaya snorts. “Venjix didn’t force me to do anything. He told me to do things, and I did them. He never took my free will. And no one ever took yours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tenaya pushes her sunglasses up so she can look K in the eye. “You keep going around like you weren’t the one to decide to do practically all of the work involved in saving the world. Nobody has ever made decisions for you, K. Sure, some of your decisions are regrettable. But others aren’t. Focus on the good, not the bad.”

K doesn’t have a response to that, so she leans back in her chair, looking over at Gem, Gemma, and Flynn again.

Tenaya, though, is apparently not finished. “At least, that’s what my therapist tells me to do. I’m not sure how it’s working out so far.”

K looks at her sharply and sees that she’s smiling slightly. Which, of course, causes K to burst out laughing which gets Tenaya laughing for real, and basically they’re one big mess.

But it feels good to be a mess every once in a while.

 

Mr. Truman visits one day, his expression less than happy.

Ziggy is out buying supplies for a project the kids are going to do, but Mr. Truman says he only needs to talk to her.

“I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.” He sighs, obviously dreading his words. “The government would like you to be aware of the delicate situation Earth has been put in. The Venjix catastrophe has weakened our planet significantly, and outside entities have noticed. Many of them are unfriendly, and a few have been openly hostile. In light of these new circumstances, the Board of Defense would like to request that the Ranger Operator Series be put back online.” K inhales sharply, but Mr. Truman isn’t finished. “They would also like to request that you assist in creating additional suits for protection purposes. They’re expecting your answer by next Wednesday when the board meets. You’re to show up here,” he finishes, handing her a business card with an address on it. He avoids her eyes as he tells her to have a good day and leaves.

She’s still standing in the entrance starting at the business card half an hour later when Ziggy gets home.

 

She doesn’t tell any of them about it.

Summer takes her to Corinth’s history museum on Friday before her trio has to leave again. Anything that survived the end of the world connected to history ended up there. K has never been one for the past, but Ziggy put “museum trip” on her list, which Summer had seen and admitted to her curiosity in the history museum.

And Summer really is interested, K realizes. She looks at the exhibits with a kind of calm intensity, like she wants to memorize everything there. K asks her about it.

“End of the world happened once, K. It could always happen again. All this? It could be gone tomorrow. I want to know everything there is to know so that I can keep the history alive.”

She says it all so casually, so flippantly, that K is suddenly fiercely reminded of what Summer lost in her days before Corinth. Of course everything would seem temporary to her.

“Do you ever feel like this wasn’t how things were supposed to go?” K asks as they continue making their way through the natural history portion of the museum. 

Summer barks out a harsh, short laugh. “Only on days that end in ‘y.’”

“No, I mean…do you ever feel like the life you’re living is…not the one you’re supposed to be living?”

“If I lived the life I was supposed to be living, I would be miserable.”

K thinks on that as she looks up at the last remaining tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. “What life do you think I was supposed to be living?”

Summer doesn’t answer for a while, staring up at the dinosaur as well. Finally she says, with finality, “I don’t think you should let that bother you. The past is worth remembering; I believe that. But, if all we do is think about the past, how are we ever going to get to the future?”

K looks at her. “That wasn’t really an answer.”

“Of course it wasn’t. I’ve spent way too much time around Dillon for any of my answers to be anything other than evasive and unhelpful.”

K cracks a smile at that, reluctantly, but it fades as she continues looking at Summer. “You don’t regret it, do you? Becoming a ranger?”

Summer shakes her head. “Never.”

“Would you do it again?” Summer’s expression flickers slightly. “If I asked you, would you do it again?”

Summer looks at her for a moment. “I’d do anything you asked me to, K. You saved my life.” Then, softly, “What prompted this?”

“They want you to go back.” It comes out in a rush, almost too immediately. Maybe she’s just tired of keeping it all inside. “There are new threats to Earth, and they want power rangers. They want you. Because saving the world once just wasn’t good enough.” A humorless smile.

Summer has quiet curiosity in her gaze. “Did they ask _you_ to reinstate us?”

“Yes. I’m the only one who knows how to bring the morphers back online. I designed them that way so they could never activate you again without asking me. I’m sure they would have if I hadn’t,” she sighs.

Summer smiles at her suddenly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

Summer shrugs. “You’re always protecting us from the bad guys.”

K stares at Summer, suddenly reminded of sea anemones and the clownfish who have to blindly trust that the anemone won’t hurt them. But, then again, dinosaurs probably blindly trusted that the sky would never fall.

 

She overhears Ziggy talking on the phone on Tuesday night. She doesn’t mean to stop and listen, but, well, curiosity has always been her fatal flaw.

“No, I don’t think she’s suicidal,” he’s muttering.  “I just—” He makes a frustrated noise. “Is she happy? Does she like being alive? I don’t know, and it’s driving me crazy, not knowing.”

Whoever’s on the other end must be speaking because he goes quiet for what feels like forever.

“I know, I know, I— But what’s going to happen when I run out of things to add to the list?”

She steps away from the door abruptly and turns to go back the way she came.

That’s the night she sneaks out.

Getting a taxi into the city isn’t a problem. Walking straight up to the garage, now that’s a challenge. (Take a deep breath and face the past; what’s the big deal?)

It’s used for storage now. Storage of all the rangers’ old gear. The lock recognizes her handprint and lets her in. She wonders if it logs that she’s been here and very suddenly doesn’t care.

It feels big and empty despite all the boxes and dust. _A haunted house_ , she can almost hear Ziggy whisper in her ear as she passes the couch which is covered with a sheet. Her feet seem surer of her destination than her head because all of a sudden she’s prying the no-longer-automatic doors to her lab open.

And there they are. Her suits, all still standing there, behind their glass. Ready for the next Venjix attack which will never come. She trails her fingers over the glass cases, leaving streaks through the dust.

She wants to say something to them. Anything. She feels like she owes the rangers some sort of explanation for how she acts, for herself. She could never say it to their faces, but maybe to their helmets. She’s said awful things to those helmets before; maybe they’d like to hear something nice for a change.

She stops in front of Dillon’s suit. And it’s _Dillon’s_ suit in her mind, she realizes. Not Ranger Operator Series Black. That’s Dillon’s suit sitting behind the glass, and it could never be anyone else’s. And he was always the first person she needed to apologize to.

She stares at it for a long time, and she wonders if she lacks courage or inspiration. “I’m sorry,” she finally manages, and her voice sounds young and distant to her ears. She clears her throat and turns so she’s looking at all of the suits more fully. “I—I’m not good at this kind of thing. I mean, obviously you know that I’m not good at it because I’m talking to a bunch of suits instead of to real people. But… I’m sorry for how I act.” She hesitates again, thinking about Ziggy’s phone call. “I’m sorry if I ever made any of you feel like you weren’t enough for me. Like…like you weren’t a good enough reason to keep going.” Her eyes focus on gold and silver, and she sort of feels like crying. “You were always my reason. The only reason. I don’t want you…I don’t want you to think that I’m not happy with the way my life is.” Her eyes flicker to Ziggy’s suit. “I don’t want you to think that I’m stuck in the past. I want you to know that I could die tomorrow, and I’d be happy. Because this?” She gestures to her surroundings. “This was home. And this was enough.” She stands very still for a moment, and she can almost hear the rangers out in the main room, shouting and clanging things together and annoying the hell out of one another. “You were enough. You still are, and you always will be,” she whispers to the empty garage.

She makes a choice.

 

She shows up to the board meeting as instructed after school. The building is tall and impersonal, and the receptionist is too happy. She’s escorted to a room with a long table surrounded by official looking people in suits. Official Man #1 stands and shakes her hand.

“Please, have a seat,” he offers.

She shakes her head. “No thank you; this won’t take long.” Confusion flashes across his face as he sinks back into his own seat. “I will not call the Ranger Operator Series back into action. I _will_ help you develop new suits and new weapons and new zords, but I will not force my rangers to save the world again. It’s not their job anymore.”

There’s stunned silence for a moment before Official Man #2 speaks. “We’re sorry that you feel this way as our time is limited and training all new rangers is time consuming. Using the existing Ranger Operator Series would be much more convenient.”

“I don’t care,” K says frankly. “Find somebody else.” Her tone is hash, cold, clinical. She can feel herself regressing into the girl she was. A girl who pretended like she was a woman instead of a woman who feels like a girl.

Another silence as they all exchange looks. This is obviously not going how they thought it would.

Official Man #3 clears his throat. “All right. We can accept that. Perhaps you can help us select—”

“No. I will not choose new rangers for you. I already forced one set of children to grow up ungodly quickly. I will not do it again. Find somebody else.”

“The rangers do not have to be children, Doctor—”

She interrupts him, closing her eyes as she does. “The biofield requires its users to be under the age of twenty-one. To defy that requirement involves either a prior connection to the field or a great deal of manipulation that you do not have the time or resources for. I refuse to let you call back any former rangers, so you are left with having to select children to fight your wars again. And you will have their blood on your hands, not me.” The silence is stunned this time, and she realizes that she’s feeling sort of lightheaded. “I will send your technicians new suit designs promptly. Thank you.” And she leaves.

 

She practically stumbles outside, wanting to be as far away from that building as she can get herself as soon as possible. She feels lost suddenly, looking around the parking garage she’s found herself in. It feels like a relapse, or a repeat. She’s seventeen, she’s just ended the world, and she’s confused and lost and scared and alone.

“Hey,” comes a voice, and she looks up to see them. They’re all there, leaning against Flynn’s and Dillon’s and Scott’s cars, smiling at her. Ziggy and Dillon and Tenaya and Flynn and Summer and Scott and Gem and Gemma, all of them. Here. Now.

“How’d it go?” It’s Summer, beautiful Summer, asking her that, and now she _really_ feels like crying. Summer must have told the rest of them what was going on.

She can’t seem to find her voice, and maybe they see that, maybe they understand, because a moment later Scott says, “You want us to take you somewhere?”

She nods, vigorously. “Anywhere but here?” she manages to say.

“My favorite destination,” Dillon replies with a grin.

They pile into all three cars, and it feels like old times. Flynn rolls down the windows and turns up the radio. It’s a song he apparently knows because he sings along, loudly and badly.

The wind whips across her face as she looks out the window. It’s actually a pleasant feeling so she closes her eyes and smiles.

Slowly, softly, she joins in on the chorus.

**Author's Note:**

> rpm's timeline is, honestly, a hot mess, so sorry if any of the time frame stuff is messed up.  
> also i know it’s really meta to have a disney movie marathon when rpm is literally a disney season but i also don’t care.


End file.
